If you're an artist and an Ecogeek, well, you're just going to have to come to my neck of the woods to check out Ecoarts , a 10-day presentation in July bringing together arts and sciences in the Boulder and Denver area.

 

This is a brand-new event that aims to create a collaboration between scientists, environmentalists, and artists, and it will also feature religious leaders, educators, and politicians. 

 

The performances and panels last from July 6-16th, and you can expect exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, a collaboration with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, guided tours of a coal-fired energy plant, and a performance by the Kronos quartet of "Sun Rings" with images of the solar system presented as they play. 

 

The best thing is that many of the lectures and walks are free, and the artistic performances usually come with a free pre-performance lecture. Visit the tickets Web site for more information.

Not all of your war-torn comic books are worth saving in the plastic, and the adorable purse-makers at PurseHeaven.com have taken old comic books and made them into a little hipster handbag. 

 

Comic books and magazines are some of the toughest materials to recycle, and these purses -- which include comics from Mod Squad, Archie, Spiderwoman, and Juhead -- save the little treasures from heading straight to the landfill.

 

In case you get caught up in the recyclable-accessory craze, PurseHeaven also offers bigger totes made from record covers. And yes, of course I just ordered the Barry Manilow one.   

 

Via: Ecofriend . 

It seems like a lot of speculation about former veep Al Gore running for president in 2008 stems from recent press coverage of his various green endeavors -- particularly his global warming film, "An Inconvenient Truth."

Of course, if all it took to get elected were movies and press coverage, why any old movie star could -- say, wait a minute.

Anyway, the Wall Street Journal has a nice, easy piece on the ifs, ors and buts of a Gore campaign. Wouldn't it be something if Gore came back as the smart, forward-thinking environmentalist that he seems to be in the private sector?

Corporations interested in sustainability just previewed something called the Environmental Paper Assessment Tool, which is supposed to help identify the environmental pros and cons of using paper from different sources.

 

The tool is being promoted by Metafore, a non-profit that describes itself thusly:

 

 

The mystery tool's makers admit that it's not the best it can be yet, but it's encouraging that big names like Bank of America are involved in the testing process.

I mean, banks use a lot of paper.

Not in relation to my account in particular, but I would imagine that if you had money or frequently made deposits, there would be a lot of paper.

I would imagine.

 

Anyway, here's a story about the tool in the Salem Statesman-Journal.  

And here's the PDF description of the tool on Metafore's site. 

London's got a big ol' population of beekeepers, and the hobby is on the rise. In addition to keeping people in touch with nature while surrounded by an urban envorinment, beekeeping produces delightful local honey.

Furthermore, from the Independent online:

 

"Surprisingly, smoggy urban streets are said to provide a purer honey than rolling fields."

"Huh?" you're saying. Read on:

"'The countryside seems green and clean, but the crops are often covered in pesticides,' explains James Hammill, a former actor turned owner of The Hive Honey Shop in south London, which stocks honey produced at the Hammills' 40 hives across London and southern England. 'Bees in cities produce more honey. We get 40 to 50 jars per hive every season in our country apiaries; in the city, we get more like 150 jars.'"

Crazy and delicious.

Welcome to the military's first hybrid -- the Heavy Expanded Mobility Technical Truck (HEMTT). This electric hybrid is proving to increase gas mileage by about 20% from its former 3-4 miles to the gallon.

 

The hybrid version took the roaring engine down to the purr of a sedan, but costs of the upgrade are still unknown. The generator can produce up to 300 kilowatts of power -- enough to power 50 homes for an indefinite amount of time. 

 

The vehicle is from Oshkosh Truck, who has made nearly 20,000 HEMTTs, with around 2,500 in use in Iraq.  

 

[Via Mercury News . For more information, visit Oshkosh Truck .]  

 

Things just aren't going well for Bushies these days. Low approval ratings, the Texas Rangers probably aren't going to be able to sign Roger Clemens and now -- can you believe it? -- scientists who are totally doing science on the government's dime are claiming that global warming is a thing.

Like a real thing.

The New York Times' Andrew C. Revkin checked out the government-commissioned report , released two days ago, and said this:

"The report's authors all agreed that their review of the data showed that the atmosphere was, in fact, warming in ways that generally meshed with computer simulations. The study said that the only factor that could explain the measured warming of Earth's average temperature over the last 50 years was the buildup heat-trapping gases, which are mainly emitted by burning coal and oil."

That's a big Hallibummer for the White House, but they stayed cheery by pointing out that this report was just the first of 21 on the subject, so they're not convinced yet.

You know how 4 out of 5 dentists recommend whatever the hell? I'll bet the fifth dentist is going to be a very happy, very rich man before all of this is over.

 

:NYT  

Okay, so EcoGeek points go to the geek who has the best reason that this is not a good idea (because I'm yet again skewing more "geek" than "eco"):

 

The Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, is developing a riot-control weapon that shoots slime at unruly crowds so they slip and fall over.

 

"Riot police or troops would wear a back pack with three cylinders – one containing compressed air, another filled with plain water and a third containing a supply of very dry, finely ground, polyacrylamide powder. A nozzle, resembling a shower head, would blasts two separate jets, containing the water and the polymer powder, in the general direction of an ugly crowd.

"As the two jets mix in the air, after clearing the nozzle, they create a slimy mixture that covers the ground and causes everyone in the area to fall down. Even vehicles should be unable to get a grip on the goo, the patent says. And because the gel is non-toxic, it should cause no permanent harm, besides a few bruised bottoms, that is."

Slime? Really? I don't care how non-toxic something is, shooting slime all over the place has to be bad for something. I'm just not smart enough to know what it is. And that's my excuse for posting this at EcoGeek. Also, it's very funny.

 

Sometimes I miss "You Can Do That On Television ."

 

:New Scientist invention blog

How much gas is wasted at stop lights? How much of our lives? How much of our happiness is lost as we wait, inhaling fumes, blocked in on all sides by equally dissatisfied drivers. We don't really have stats on any of that, but we do know that 3.6 billion hours and 5 billion gallons of gas are wasted every year waiting in traffic.

Why do we do it? Because there's no better solution. But not for long! If we're gonna have to live with cars, we might as well find solutions to these horrible problems. Computer scientists at the University of Texas have created a program that can control simulated cars at a six-lane intersection without traffic lights or crashes . Of course, this assumes that every car is run by an automated system and I can imagine that it would be extremely frightening to be in one of those cars.

This model is amazing, to watch a hundred rectangles headed for eminent doom before missing one another by the width of a pixel. Think of all the gasoline that could be saved! But don't think about what would happen if the system crashed.

 You can also run the simulator with traffic lights, or you can design your own custom scenario (be careful though, cause I almost crashed my computer when I asked it to take control of an 18 lane highway.)

 

There's a thing here somewhere. Yellowphone. Cellowstone. I don't know. But the point is, Yellowstone National Park officials are looking at what their spokesman calls "an environmental assessment for wireless communications."

The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) nabbed some documents via that pesky Freedom of Information Act that showed that park officials had contacted a few telecommunications companies asking for ideas. No harm in asking for suggestions, I guess, but who wants cell towers in national parks?

 

Frankly, I'm okay if nobody can call me while I'm in the park. They should have just come with me in the first place.

 

And it's not as if there's no reception there now -- just spotty. The photo, by the way, is a tower that Yellowstone put up not too far from Old Faithful about five years ago.

 

Here's the AP story at CNN.com.

 

And here's the excitingly-titled "TELECOMS’ SECRET PLAN TO WIRE ENTIRE YELLOWSTONE PARK" press release at PEER's site. I'm getting shivers!

Do you live in California? Do you know what's going on in the gubernatorial race?

Here's your chance to figure out where (or if, I guess) the two Democratic candidates stand on environmental issues:

Tonight on KGO-TV in San Francisco, Treasurer Phil Angelides of Sacto and Controller Steve Westly of Atherton, the two Dems hoping to challenge Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger this year, will meet each other in a debate focused on the environment.

Details:

7 p.m., KGO-TV tonight (Wednesday)
Re-broadcast: 4 p.m., KGO-TV Saturday

It doesn't apply to everyone here, I know, but it's one of those things.

 

:San Jose Mercury News

Silly me -- I thought newspapers were just going to become obselete because everyone read them online. That might still be a bit drastic, and a daily economic paper in Europe called Les Echos is trying to strike a balance by producing the paper electronically using iLiad E-reader. 

E-newspaper

 

Readers use a tablet that weighs less than a pound. Currently e-newspapers are only available in black and white, with 16 shades of gray.

 

The real news is for the ad sales reps -- you can program the devices to show coffee ads in the morning and beer ads in the evening. Or if you happen to be reading your handy tablet near a Wi-Fi spot, ads may become more interactive to Mapquest you to their destination.

 

Via: LiveScience.com